The Great Reduction

The Swedish kings of the 16th and 17th centuries alternated between acceptance and dislike of the nobility. In Gustav Vasa's time there was little difference between a rich farmer and a nobleman, but the situation changed towards the end of his life. Erik XIV kept the nobles on a short leash whereas his brother John wanted to expand their privileges. The third brother, who was to become Charles IX, hated the nobility with an almost revolutionary fervor and surrounded himself with men of the lower classes, toying with ideas that were unheard of in his time. Under Gustavus Adolphus and Axel Oxenstierna the pendulum swung the other way and the nobles gained both land and power. This tendency took an abrupt end with Charles XI, who after the humiliating defeat of Sweden in 1679 commenced a policy of wide scale reductions of the lands and powers of the nobility and abolished the special privileges of the Baltic lords.